Crashing Into Heaven @oneiric-savvyhead - Tumblr Blog

I've just seen a product on DriveThruRPG that's described as a "splash book." I think it's probably just a really funny malapropism of "splatbook."

The story goes that back in the nineties when White Wolf started releasing their Clanbooks and Tribebooks and Kithbooks and what have you for their World of Darkness game lines they were released in a softcover format because as non-core products they were not expected to sell quite as well. These books came to be called "splatbooks" because of the "splat" sound they make on account of their soft flapping covers. Anyway down the line this sort of led to the part of your character that most clearly differentiates them from other characters of their broad supernatural type (Clan for Vampires, Tribe for Werewolves, Kith for Changelings, etc.) being referred to as a character's "splat."

Both splatbook and the term splat as a character-building term are still in use in RPG discussions to an extent, but these days the former can cover pretty much any sourcebook, even if it's in a hardcover format (although if it revolves around a certain character type it's easier to characterize as such: one could argue that 3.5's Complete Warrior was a Warrior splatbook in spite of being a hardcover), and the latter sometimes gets applied outside of World of Darkness and other games of White Wolf descent, although that is where you'll still most commonly find it (the different types of titular exalted in Exalted would count as that game's splats).

Anyway so it's probably called a splash book because they expect that it'll make quite a splash in the world of 5e compatible products based on actual play shows,

thydungeongal

I'm going to be introducing the RPG-playing world to the concept of crashbooks: that's right, when you open the PDF it crashes your computer

thydungeongal

Historical Revisionism Alert:

The aforementioned origin of "splatbook" is likely to be a case of folk etymology. Supposedly the term actually originates from the books being referred to as *books on newsgroups (the asterisk being used as a wildcard character) and the asterisk being colloquially known as a "splat."

jennamoran

Blue Planet should have had splashbooks, tbh

oneiric-savvyhead

Huh, I always thought it was a kind of contraction of "supplement" ie SPLT book

antifainternational

victoriadallonfan

- Pitch 5.3

This sequence does a lot to really put things in perspective for Victoria in the early phase of Ward

1. It shows how eager she is to grasp to anything reminding her of the “good old days” where she had some measure of innocence and the belief that she had a bright future, trying to preserve them with care and affection as much as possible, even though they aren’t 1:1 the same. Because if she can preserve SOME good in her life, she can remain “whole”.

2. It shows how directly opposite this makes her in comparison to Carol, who removes any reminder of the better days in favor of… nothing. It had just become an empty room that was just THERE now, her hopes and dreams for the future of her children gone. However, rather tellingly, she doesn’t send any of these items to Victoria within the Asylum, despite her daughter clearly wanting them.

3. It expands on New Wave’s station in Brockton Bay, financially. Manpower is mentioned as spoiling Victoria with gifts, juxtaposed with Victoria being excited about earning 2k dollars around the time she was 17 (for reference, had I not paid for EMT/College courses, I would have made nearly 4k when I was 18, in a year or so working at a movie theatre).

What makes this so interesting that the last we hear about Manpower, he has no job, in fact it’s implied that the reason New Wave struggled so much financially (see: Arc 2) was because Carol was the one whom supported both families with her job + donations made by the city to their team.

3.5. When this is juxtaposed to Taylor earning that same amount of money in one meeting with the Undersiders, it really puts into perspective that there does seem to be a huge wealth disparity between indie heroes and supervillains, or at the very least, between the donations New Wave accrued compared to the protection racket the Undersiders enforced + all the other payments made to them by Coil, and how that might further explain the growth of villainy in Earth Bet pre-GM.

4. Victoria planning on leaving the city to live with Dean (or as she put it, follow him), is interesting because there’s never really another character in the entire series that makes Victoria decide to alter her entire life around in order stay by their side. And yes, she’s 17, she’s in love, a lot of people can chalk it up to her simply not knowing better. Maybe.

But I think this is actually more of the peak of Victoria’s flaw in Ward, where she puts people onto pedestals and - in a sense - worships them. Vista, Yamada, Sveta, and Miss Militia are all characters that she highlights as the ideal heroes whom she aspires to be like, and each one fails in her eyes over the story to different degrees (and different degrees of fairness): Sveta is willing to kill people while under the Goddess influence (something that not even Vic was willing to do), Yamada broke her trust and detached from her nearly entirely, Miss Militia didn’t really give a shit when Victoria saved her Wardens from being murdered and stopped WW3, and Vista has murdered and allowed awful people to go free ala Defiant (it’s very telling that Sveta and Vista were ones that Victoria was willing to overlook, because they are tied into #1 point above, whereas Yamada’s breach of trust could not be salvaged).

Dean was all of them, but ramped up to 10. He was her soulmate. He was everything she wanted in a hero.

He died. And all she has are remnants and pieces that can never really live up to the hype in her mind. Not even Dean himself.

dungeongrind

The Very Hungry Rust Monster is a mini-comic I made a few years back. I’ve seen it floating around Tumblr without attribution recently, so I’ve uploaded a higher-resolution version, properly credited.

compostyourego

@scvmcvnt

sdrhodes

@david-c-ridout, @sewickedthread

sewickedthread

My friends know me well

tiefling-queer

look at me. listen to me. bigots and queerphobes don’t know the distinction between a trans person, a gnc cis gay person, and a cisgender heterosexual crossdresser. all of these people are just queer degenerates to them. that is why their anti-drag bills are written so vaguely as to encompass any possible mundane gender nonconformity - so they can target as many of us as possible in one ruling. and that’s why you need to stop trying to put lines between these groups in regards to ‘who’s more oppressed’ and ‘who has the right to talk about gender’ - gender nonconformity and transgenderism are punished in exactly the same way. cut one of us and the other bleeds. our fight is the same.

genderkoolaid

also: if you would consider an act of violence [x phobia] if it happens to one queer identity, but if that person later questioned and identified as something else you would decide it was an entirely type of bigotry, you don’t really understand that bigotry

gardenvarietyhuman

💥🙌👏

ineffablebookgirl

Well shit, Henry Jenkins, out here in 1997 dropping truth bombs

addressmysol

Oh hey I need this for a research paper I'm writing, thank you!

angstbotfic

i mean he had been out here since 1988 dropping such bombs:

"'fandom' is a vehicle of marginalized subcultural groups (women, the young, gays, etc.) to pry open space for their cultural concerns within dominant representations; it is a way of appropriating media texts and rereading them in a way that serves different interests, a way of transforming mass culture into a popular culture"

Jenkins, Henry. “Star Trek Rerun, Reread, Rewritten: Fan Writing as Textual Poaching.” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 5, no. 2 (1988): 85–107. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295038809366691.

there are even some earlier works in fan studies but that’s what i have ready to hand.

neil-gaiman

Henry's been amazing for a long time.

theartofmadeline

cards 0-5 in my muppets major arcana

card-of-the-day

Today’s card is: A 3x5 index card

brainsanalysis-deactivated20210

Hello please reblog this if you’re okay with people sending you random asks to get to know you better

bregflr-deactivated20230925

she can't be smug all the time, sometimes she has to remember.

goodolreliablejake

When did we all decide that the Easter Bunny lays the eggs? I always just assumed he stole them.

oneiric-savvyhead

Silly rabbit, eggs are for chicks!

goodolreliablejake

Hey, listen... Is SpyxFamily about being neurodivergent?

goodolreliablejake

I was charmed by this series immediately, but as I read on I see something more.

These characters are superhumanly talented, and yet they live their lives in constant fear of being discovered for who they really are. They're constantly struggling to understand what "normal" is, and they're terrified of anyone learning the truth about them. They overcompensate in ways that draw undue attention. They panic in situations where the stakes are lowest, while effortlessly performing what to other people are miracles.

Anya reminds me of Alice in Wonderland. She just wants to be with her family and watch cartoons, but her teachers and parents keep putting these demands on her that to her seem like absolute nonsense: studying and hankychiefs and all the absurd hoops of respectability. Her smirk is hilarious because of the disconnect between her and her peers; she thinks she's hit on the clever thing that will win her respect and adoration, but her thought process differs from Sy-on Boy's such that they might as well be from different planets.

With Yor, there's a lot of humor in her attempts to fit in, but they are also tragic. Because the assassin, the one-woman army who shrugs off bullets, lives in fear for her life, because she thinks if she acts "odd," if she can't fit in at work or find a date, then the literal secret police will cart her away. And I think even more than Anya (who is kind of impervious to taunts and gives as good as she gets), Yor is a victim of bullying from her peers, who disguise their barbs in ways she simply cannot.

You’d think Twilight—the spy, the manipulator—would be the exception to this pattern, but no. Look at his complete misreading of Yor’s reaction to his advances. Look at the absurd lengths he goes to on the cruise to understand and appeal to Anya—and the ridiculous tourist costume and activities he’ll do to appear like a “normal, fun-loving dad.” Loid can accomplish amazing things as a spy, but he’s clueless as a man. And what’s more, he needs to rely on that level of fastidious preparation, intel, and guile to accomplish perfectly normal everyday tasks.

So I think that’s what makes the series work so well as both a comedy and a heartwarming tale about a lovable family. Because on one level, their flailing attempts to pretend to be a “normal family” while being anything but are comical and absurd. But on another level, it’s obvious that they are a real family, because they’re the only ones who can truly understand one another. Under the surface, they’re the same.

oneiric-savvyhead

Yeah I think that's pretty spot-on but I've only watched a bit